State launches new CORE financial system today

DENVER ­— Tuesday, July 1, 2014 — The State of Colorado today launched the Colorado Operations Resource Engine (CORE), an integrated financial management system that replaces the existing 22-year old Colorado Financial Reporting System (COFRS). The system tracks the State’s $29 billion in annual expenditure transactions, pays vendors, records payroll, supports the collection of about $9 billion in grant revenues, and applies $8 billion of tax revenues – to name just a few of its key functionalities.

The system CORE is replacing was written in COBOL and has a green screen that users tab through. The need to replace it was first identified in 1999, and multiple independent studies over the past 15 years identified COFRS’ limitations, culminating in a 2011 report from the Office of the State Auditor that found that COFRS was not sustainable, even in the short term.

Among the many benefits of upgrading, CORE will replace an outdated system on the verge of failure, as well as a number of other stand-alone, aging or redundant systems with a single source of reliable and transparent fiscal data for the majority of the State’s financial operations. General accounting, purchasing, budgeting and reporting will all be standardized into a single compatible system that will streamline State government business practices, which translates into more seamless, efficient operations and added transparency within and across the system.

The State selected CGI’s Advantage out-of-the-box system which was dubbed CORE and configured to meet Colorado’s unique needs. Advantage has been implemented successfully in 22 states by more than 200 local government organizations.

The July 1 launch date was selected since it is the start of the State’s fiscal year, which avoids a more complicated mid-year cutover. Due to the large scale of the implementation and the number of systems that integrate with it, the State will take seven days to completely migrate data and functionality from the old system to CORE. Most State employee users will begin accessing CORE on Monday, July 7. External customers, such as vendors to the state, will begin accessing the new online Vendor Self Service system on July 7, as well.

The CORE system will impact all three branches of State government. CORE will greatly improve the State’s ability to meet its long-standing commitment to fiscal discipline, financial accountability, transparency and cost beneficial controls in ways that are not possible in the previous system.

CORE implementation is a joint effort between The Colorado Department of Personnel & Administration, the project’s business sponsor, and the State’s Office of information Technology.